How a professor with a Cantonese accent improved student engagement

Editor's note: Please note that names may be changed for confidentiality purposes.

Who is this client? 

Several years ago, Chris immigrated from Hong Kong but had difficulty engaging students. He disliked the sound of his voice and felt that he sounded like a robot. When teaching the closed captioning for his lectures, it was always incorrect, making it difficult for students who relied on closed captions. As a professor, some key responsibilities were to: 

• Engage students.
• Present info in interesting and clear way.
• Be able to build rapport with students.
• Providing training and mentoring to teaching assistants and junior lecturers.
• Assisting with student recruitment, interviews and academic counselling.

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What were his goals? 

Chris wanted to work with a Speech-Language Pathologist to make his voice less monotone and use his voice to engage students. Chris wanted to clarify his speech as he had patterns of mixing up r’s and l’s. By refining his speech, he would feel more comfortable emphasizing important content in his lectures.  

• Very → weary 
• Three → free 
• Bed → bad 
• Employee → empoyee 

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How did Speak Fluent's Speech- Language Pathologist help?

After 24 sessions, Chris emphasized essential points in lectures and engaged his students with a less monotone voice. There was a clear distinction between crucial points and points that were not important. The automatically generated closed captioning was now more accurate, providing relief for the students who relied on them. 

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Do you want to improve your communication? As licensed professionals, our team of clinicians are highly trained and provide support for various communication-related services, including accent modification, public and professional speaking, voice use, and speech disorders. Contact us and find out how we can help you today!